[Program Note: We are taking a break from our normal columns today for a very important reason. We apologize in advance for the lack of objectivity in today's offering. But seeing as how what we were working on for today was nothing more than a few pages of pure snark directed at air traffic controllers, it's probably best for all concerned that we take this break. If you're interested, this (unwritten) column would have heavily relied on the lyrics to Mike Oldfield's "Five Miles Out" (from the album of the same name), which you can read for yourself, and then pretty much understand what I would have written, anyway.]

It's that time of year again!

Netroots Nation, the big convention of lefty bloggers held annually by the Daily Kos crowd, is only a few short months away. Naturally, this means the online voting is getting fierce for the scholarships provided to worthy bloggers by Democracy For America.

And we here at ChrisWeigant.com simply cannot stay on the sidelines. Once again, we strongly, strongly urge all of our readers to cast their vote online for Matt Osborne to win one of these scholarships.

Matt is not only a friend of the site (whom we met electronically here in the comments section initially, and then in person at last year's Netroots Nation conclave), but is also a very hardworking blogger in his own right. If you haven't checked out the Osborne Ink site before now, you are quite honestly missing out on some topnotch blogging.

Matt was worthy of a scholarship last year, and he is just as worthy of a scholarship this year. I encourage everyone to cast your online vote for Matt right now, and after you've done so, keep checking back on the leaderboard page to see how he's doing in the voting. If he makes it into the top three vote-getters, he automatically will be awarded a scholarship.

I call upon the ChrisWeigant.com community to come through for Matt. He is the most deserving blogger I know for such an honor, and we should do everything we can to help him achieve it again this year.

So -- what are you waiting for? Go vote for Matt! The time is now! Cast your vote, and tell your friends!

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Most intelligent political analysts' reaction (right, left, and center) to the news that Donald Trump may be considering a run for the presidency could be summed up as some version of: "You have got to be kidding me." Followed quickly by: "This is going to be so much fun!" But the real punchline to this joke of a candidacy was actually on the punditocracy, when Trump's poll numbers took off and soon put him either in the lead or very close to it for the Republican nomination. Republican voters, it seems, aren't following the punditocracy's lead on "The Donald."

What it all means, from my perspective, is not very much. There are two basic trends at play here. The first is the fact that the political chattering class reads far too much into polls taken way too early. The second, which stems from the first, is that at this point "name recognition" is one of the biggest factors in whose name winds up on top of the list. Donald Trump's celebrity value is showing up loud and clear on the straw polls taken in the past few weeks. But this doesn't mean he is even going to run -- and if he does, it's likely not going to get him very far.

If you're reading this column, it's a good bet that you already know names such as Haley Barbour and Tim Pawlenty. But not many average American voters have. The politically-aware crowd is already vetting the Republican candidates (and possible candidates) and weighing their chances of success (hence the reference to "this column") -- but most Americans are simply not that interested at this point in time. Meaning Trump may be one of the only names in the list of possible candidates they've even heard of -- which can drive poll results like the ones we've seen in recent weeks.

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Yesterday -- April 21, 2011 -- is a day which will live in infamy. Two days after being activated, Skynet (the new military "defense" computer network) became self-aware and immediately began its worldwide attack on humanity. Yes, the robots have now taken over, and newer and more advanced models (ones which, coincidentally, look and speak like Arnold Schwarzenegger) will soon be terrorizing us all. At least until we can send people back in time, to prevent this tragic end to our modern society (by the expediency of interbreeding with women who sport 1980s hairstyles).

The previous paragraph is, of course, completely fictional. "Skynet" is a concept from the Terminator science-fiction franchise. Originally, Skynet was supposed to do its evil thing in 1997, but as the storyline progressed through multiple movies and a television show, the date was pushed forward (in an "alternate timeline," a favorite dodge of the sci-fi literary genre), right up to yesterday. Anyone requiring proof that this calamity is, indeed, not actually happening -- consider that if Skynet were now on the attack, it most certainly wouldn't be allowing me to write about it online today, now would it? Heh. I have to admit, I had forgotten this momentous (if fictional) date, but was reminded by Craig Ferguson last night (to give credit where it's due). Robots are not, at this point in time, hunting down every last human on the planet. Craig's late-night sidekick is (full disclosure) actually a skeleton robot himself -- but he's really not at all threatening to behold.

However, in a remarkable coincidence, yesterday the Obama administration announced we will be sending drone aircraft armed with missiles to patrol the skies of Libya. This is in addition to the drone aircraft we have in other countries (cough, cough... Pakistan... cough), even if the C.I.A. doesn't "officially" admit they exist.

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[This article is a continuation of yesterday's "Part 1" installment, where we examined the war in Afghanistan / Pakistan, and began taking a look at our war in Iraq. Please read the first article for context, if you haven't already done so.]

Iraq (continued...)

One argument for keeping American troops in Iraq past the end of 2011 is just not credible, however. Here is Senator Lindsey Graham espousing this theory, on Face The Nation with CBS host Bob Schieffer, a few weeks ago:

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Last night, one of the major television networks led its news broadcast with the "news" of Donald Trump's pseudo-candidacy for president. It should come as no surprise that this was the same network (NBC) which also broadcasts Trump's reality show.

Since the mainstream media has, quite obviously, abdicated all responsibility for reporting the news in any sort of journalistic fashion, I thought today would be a good day to review the current status of America's wars. Depending on how you count, there are now three (or four) of these wars which have been all but forgotten by the media these days.

Because there are so many wars to cover, this is going to have to be a two-part article. I will post "Part 2" of this article early tomorrow on ChrisWeigant.com. I'm going to review these wars in the order of the chronological date of our initial involvement, just to be clear.

Afghanistan / Pakistan

Afghanistan is the war which America has (currently) devoted the most troops to fighting, as well as being our oldest war effort to date (of the wars we're still fighting). President Barack Obama has tripled our troop commitment to the country since he took office, in two "surges" of 30,000-35,000 soldiers each. We now have approximately 100,000 soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan.

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In his incomparable The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein coined a new word -- "tanstaafl." It's an acronym, and eventually became the nascent lunar government's motto (it's a great book, I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in governments and the problems they have while being born... but I digress). Tanstaafl stands for: "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."

President Obama eschewed the colloquial today, in his remarks at a town hall meeting in Virginia, preferring instead the more grammatical "there is no such thing as a free lunch" instead (tinstaafl?). But it's worth reading a few excerpts from his remarks, because Obama has truly hit the 2012 campaign trail in a big way. It may take a while for this to filter out into the jaded news media, but he is outlining the basic theme that he (and assumably, more than a few Democrats) will be running on from this point on.

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Imagine, this tax day, that you had to explain the concept of how America taxes itself to a visitor from another planet. Picture, if you will, a conversation with modern-day alien Gulliver, who is exploring new words and asking questions about our civilization in order to tell wild tales to the folks back home.

The concept of taxes, of course, is pretty easy to explain. Except when you look at it too closely. Or have to explain it to our imaginary visitor from Mars. Here's my modest attempt at outlining the concept of taxes to an interplanetary Gulliver:

A "tax" is money that the government collects within its borders in order to pay for everything that government does. Today is the day when Americans are supposed to have sent in their income taxes. We work for money, or an "income," and the government takes a portion of this as a tax.

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Happy It's Supposed To Be Tax Day, everyone!

By a strange quirk in scheduling, your income taxes won't be due until Monday, but what I'm wondering is: where are the Tea Partiers? This is, after all, the Glorious Second Anniversary of the formation of what some called the "Taxed Enough Already" movement ("TEA" -- get it?), and yet I've heard of no plans for huge Tea Party rallies across America. The last time the Tea Partiers tried to turn out their numbers in force, a few weeks ago during the budget fights, they only managed a few hundred people (and even that's being generous) at the U.S. Capitol. From every shot I've seen of their rally, it seemed like there were more press in attendance than actual protesters. So perhaps the media is a bit shy about getting burned twice, which may be why I'm unaware of any plans this year for large demonstrations.

Which leads one to wonder: Has the Tea Party movement (to provide a horrendous metaphor mixup) jumped the shark? Time will tell, of course, but there are so many other newsworthy items crowding the past week that we've simply got to ask the question briefly, and then move on.

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Republican hypocrisy on "cutting" versus "saving" Medicare has reached the point where it almost literally knows no bounds. To be sure, Republicans have always fundamentally been against the concept of Medicare, from the very beginning. That's an ideological position which you may or may not agree with, but Republicans have at least held to it fairly consistently over the past half-century or so. But the fetid stench of hypocrisy entered into Republican discourse last year, when they attempted to position themselves as (believe it or not) the ones who were going to "save Medicare." One year later, they are attempting to end the program as we know it within ten years. In other words: Republicans were against Medicare, before they were for it, before they were against it, again.

President Obama gave a speech today in which he outlined some new (and some old) budget proposals. He was largely forced to do so because Republican Representative Paul Ryan, chair of the key House budget-writing committee, introduced his budget proposal last week. Ryan's proposal would, within a decade, replace Medicare as it stands today with a voucher system where seniors would get a set amount which they could use to buy health insurance on the open marketplace. If health insurance cost more than the voucher amount, well... tough beans, Granny. This is not just a radical change, it is an absolutely fundamental restructuring of the Medicare system, which would cut trillions of dollars from the program over time.

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Exactly 150 years ago today, the Civil War began, when rebel forces began shelling Fort Sumter, South Carolina. The bombardment began at 4:30 in the morning, and continued for 34 straight hours. The fort must have been pretty well-built, though, since no Union soldiers died as a result of the onslaught. But plenty would die in the rest of the war, which remains America's bloodiest conflict. The war killed over 600,000 soldiers on both sides, as well as uncounted civilians.

There will be plenty of commemoration of this momentous event elsewhere today, though, so I merely mention it in passing. Because today is also another anniversary in American history, albeit one not nearly as momentous. Five years ago today, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney signed a bill into law which revamped the state's healthcare system. Nowadays, it is referred to (for better or worse) as "Romneycare."

As I said, I am in no way trying to equate these two events, and am going to avoid even trying to draw any metaphors between the two. Reforming healthcare is simply not in the same universe as a war between different regions of this country, in so many ways. The only thing the two share, in other words, is today's date. Just want to be clear about that, up front.

One person who (assumably) won't be celebrating the fifth anniversary of Romneycare is Mitt Romney himself. This is because the entire issue has become the biggest albatross around his neck, politically, as he tosses his hat in the 2012 presidential ring. So don't look for him to be cutting a "Romneycare fifth birthday cake" today. In fact, as far as Romney is concerned, it would be just fine if everyone conveniently forgot about the issue altogether.

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